Bridge Inn, Bridge Street

The Market Place, approximate location of the Bridge Inn until its demolition around 1932.

Located on Bridge Street next to the site occupied by Bolton’s fish market until the late-twenties, Bridge Inn was originally called the Gartside Arms and was in existence by 1800. [1]

The pub hosted a Literary and Philosophical Society in 1813 though it subsequently moved to a room in the New Shambles. [2]

The Bridge Inn saw its licence refused in 1926 and it was demolished in the early-1930s for the widening of Bridge Street. Also demolished was the fish market, which was moved to the new market premises on Ashburner Street.

[1] Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000, by Gordon Readyhough, published by Neil Richardson (2000).

[2] Leisure In Bolton, 1750-1900, Robert Poole, 1982.

Cross Axes, off Deansgate

Woods Court, off Deansgate. Roughly the site of the Cross Axes in the nineteenth century. Copyright, Google.

This former alehouse dated back at least to the 1770s and was known both as the Cross Axes and the Crown & Anchor. It closed in 1879 when the licence was transferred to the Globe, which was later known as the Market Tavern (T’Crate Egg) on Ashburner Street. [1]

The premises were demolished to make way for an extension to the Bank Of Bolton, now the branch of Natwest Bank on Deansgate, close to the Old Three Crowns.

In his book Bolton Town Centre, A Modern History. Part One: Deansgate, Victoria Square, Churchgate and Surrounding Areas, 1900-1998, Gordon Readyhough states that Cross Axes Entry then became known as Woods Court. The 1849 map of Bolton shows that Woods Court already had that name although it didn’t all the way to Deansgate as it does now and it is likely that Woods Court would  have been extended to include Cross Axes Entry.

[1] Bolton Town Centre, A Modern History. Part One: Deansgate, Victoria Square, Churchgate and Surrounding Areas, 1900-1998

Boar's Head

The Capitol, successor to the Boar's Head, photographed in 2011. The Capitol closed in June 2014. Hogarth's, a pub with its own brewery, opened later that year.

The Boar’s Head stood on Churchgate on the site of what is now Hogarth's and was formerly the Capitol and before that the Varsity. The pub was the middle of three properties that were demolished to make way for the re-development, the others being the Sandwich Inn café bar on the right, and a fish-and-chip shop on the other side called the Chip Inn. The Boar’s Head itself was only quite small, probably less than a third the size of Hogarth's.

The pub was built in 1721 and at a time when the life of the town revolved around the Churchgate area it was one of the principal inns of the time doubling up as a post office and was even a courthouse as the local magistrates sat there for many years after the 1780s. [1] It became a Magee, Marshall pub and then Greenall’s when Magee’s sold out in 1958.

In the early-twentieth century the landlord was a John Bromilow. There must have been something about pub landlords and the fledgling motor industry as Mr Bromilow – as well as Ross Isherwood, then the landlord of the Prince William on Bradshawgate, and Stanley Parker of the Roebuck on Kay Street – was one of the pioneers of the motoring industry in Bolton [2]. In 1916 Mr Bromilow entered into a design partnership with a brilliant engineer named Maurice Edwards and although the Bromilow and Edwards partnership only lasted for some 13 years, the company they founded still lives on today as Edbro on Lever Street.

In his reminiscences of life in Churchgate [3], Fred Hill recalls that boxing matches used to take place upstairs. Given the small size of the pub – not much bigger than a reasonably-sized house - and the need for living quarters this beggars belief but we must take his word for it.

I well remember the Boar’s Head in the eighties when on a Friday and Saturday night it would be packed out with a variety of customers. The Camra Greater Manchester Good Beer Guide of 1980 [4] described it as being “popular with the young”, which was true, but there was always a great atmosphere and the Boar’s Head welcomed just about everybody at that time and without any trouble. A 1982 refurbishment saw it spruced up a bit and the then landlord made anyone wearing a leather jacket take it off on the way in. As the eighties wore on landlords come and went, with the pub moving from a managed house to a tenancy after Greenall’s accountants worked out it was losing them money. [5] Through all that the mainstay of the pub was the genial barman Gordon, who had worked at the pub since 1966 and who certainly made life easier for successive licensees.

The Boars Head pictured in 1980. Taken from the Greater Manchester Good Beer Guide published by the Greater Manchester branches of the Campaign for Real Ale. (Published 1980).

To be honest it was a cracking little pub that always served real ales – Greenall’s admittedly – from one of those now-outlawed electrically-operated diaphragm pumps where a handle was moved across to pump the beer into the glass. Handpumps were later installed and it was an early outlet for Greenall’s Original Bitter in the mid-eighties when the brewery tackled what was a pretty poor reputation for its cask beers. OB was a decent drop when well-kept and the Boar’s Head ended up in a few editions of the Good Beer Guide.

By the late eighties the pub’s future was in doubt and by 1988 structural problems meant that it was surrounded by scaffolding as Greenall’s worked out what to do with it (though in truth they were also working out what to do with their wider business and eventually got out of pubs and brewing altogether). At the time it was reported that they wanted to extend the pub while the council were warning it might have to be demolished. [6] By then the Boar’s Head was somehow putting on live music, despite its diminutive size. [7]. The whole of the pub was on the ground floor of the premises with the landlord’s living area upstairs and it covered an area no more than a quarter of the current Capitol pub.

The Boar’s Head closed in March 1992. Three years earlier Greenall’s had applied for planning permission to pull it down and replace it with a building consisting of a new pub at the base of a five-storey office building. Bill Brown of Bolton Civic Trust argued that it could only be demolished if the new building “enhances the existing character of the area,” but according to Greenalls, the adjoining café was unsafe while the pub and the chippy were in “poor condition.” [8]

After closure the three properties remained empty and boarded up for some years afterwards until eventually the site was bought by Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries who knocked it down and rebuilt it – though without the offices - as Varsity in 1999. It was later renamed the Capitol after the cinema which stood on the site of the tax offices.

There were rumours at the time of demolition that some local potholers had been given access to the site to look for evidence of tunnels leading under Churchgate towards the Parish Church. Rumours of those tunnels have abounded for centuries – were any found?

These days the Capitol stands on the site though that closed in June 2014. As a replacement for the Boar’s Head it wasn't bad, selling a fair drop of real ale and while it was still “popular with the young” as the Camra guide stated over 30 years ago  it still attracted its share of a more mature clientele just as the old pub did.

The Capitol closed in June 2014 and the premises were bought by Amber Taverns. Rumours it was to become a sports bar proved to be unfounded. It re-opened in October 2014 as 'Hogarth's' - a micro-brewery/gin palace.

[1] Leisure In Bolton, 1750-1900, Robert Poole, 1982
[2]A History Of The Motor Trade In Bolton – Dennis O’Connor, 2009.
[3] Churchgate 50 Years Ago: A Biography Of Lifestyle In The Early Thirties, Fred Hill, 1981.
[4] Greater Manchester Good Beer Guide, published by the Campaign for Real Ale, 1980.
[5] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers’ monthly magazine, August 1985.
[6] What’s Doing, November 1988.
[7] Bolton Beer Break, Summer 1988.
[8] What’s Doing, July 1989

Crofters Hotel/Magees/Smudge's

The former Crofters Hotel pictured in April 2012. Copyright Google.

 The Crofters Arms at the junction of St George’s Road, Chorley New Road, Chorley Old Road and Chorley Street was initially licensed at the turn of the 19th century. At that time it was known as the Whitsters Arms, a whitster being another name for a crofter.

Until around 1907 the pub was a much smaller building and can be seen here in a photograph held by Bolton library and dated between 1895 and 1900. It had been owned by the Manchester Brewery Company since at least the 1870s and was subsequently acquired by Bolton Corporation before being sold on to local brewery Magee Marshall & Co. The pub was rebuilt in 1906/07 with Magees paying the council £500 and giving up the licence of the New Bridge Inn on Churchbank. [1]. The ‘MM & Co’ sign can still be seen near the roof of the pub [see picture here]

The Crofters remained in the company’s hands until it was taken over by Greenall Whitley in 1958. It was refurbished in 1983 with many of the old features of the pub being retained. The carved bar was turned round dividing the pub into two but with one large lounge replacing the old lounge and pool room. [2]

The pub was later known as Magees after its former owners but after a period of closure it re-opened as Gallaghers Oyster Bar. By March 2000 it was the Oystercatcher Brasserie before becoming the Conquistador tapas eaterie and then the Moghuls Palace Indian restaurant.

In 2009 the pub was taken over by Jane McDonald and Frank Smith, the then licensees of the Howcroft and the Roundhouse in Halliwell. Ms McDonald and Mr Smith evicted squatters who had taken up residence in the pub and spent around £30,000 in a refurbishment. The pub became known as Smudge’s – Mr Smith’s nickname. [3]

 Sadly, Frank Smith died in September 2010 and the pub closed shortly afterwards. The building is still up for sale though it is unlikely to be used again as a pub.

[1] Pubs Of Bolton 1800-2000 by Gordon Readyhough, published by Neil Richardson (2000).
[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester Beer Drinkers monthly magazine, November 1983 issue.
[3] Bolton News, 14 September 2009. Retrieved 23 March 2014.

Ben Topp's/McGinlay's/Absolutely Fabulous

Two shots of the former Ben Topp's building. On the left a view taken in 2012 (copyright Google Street View). On the right an image of the building from the 1960s when it was still part of the nearby St George's church. For many years it was used as a school building. Photo from the Bolton Library and Museum Services collection.  Copyright Bolton Council. 



Ben Topp's opened at the top of Bath Street in 1986. The former St George’s school building, which since the early-eighties has backed onto Topp Way, was built in 1847 but was bought in 1981 by businessman Des Duxbury who wanted to turn it into a free house. A finance company backing the project stepped down so Tetley’s brewery stepped in with a free trade loan. [1].

 It was initially named after Ben Topp, which was something of an oddity as the prominent trade unionist Mr Topp is believed to have been teetotal. In 1986 the pub won an award from the Civic Trust, much to the puzzlement of the writer in local beer magazine What’s Doing [2], but the premises did nothing as a pub, probably as it was too far out of the town centre. Revellers weren’t likely to make a detour along St George’s Road on their way to the nightclub on Bridge Street (the old Palais building knows as Ikon, Ritzy and initially the Palais) and by 1988 it was up for sale for a price of £350,000.

In 1994 the then-Bolton Wanderers striker John McGinlay took over and turned it into a sports bar named McGinlay’s. That wasn’t as successful as McGinlay’s spell at the Wanderers and it later became a cabaret bar called Absolutely Fabulous before becoming a furniture showroom.

In 2009 the Bolton News reported plans for the building to be turned into a restaurant. Owner Clarence House Properties Ltd planned to add a number of one-bedroom apartments on the upper floors but went bust before the plans could come to fruition. The building remains empty.

[1] Bolton Beer Break, Summer 1988.
[2] What’s Doing, June 1986.
[3] Bolton News, 17 September 2009.

Here is a side view of the building taken at the same time as the image at the top of the page. Clarence Street can be seen tailing off into the distance. Clarence Street once linked Vernon Street with Kay Street but is now a fraction of its former length. Photo from the Bolton Library and Museum Services collection.  Copyright Bolton Council. 

Lodge Bank Tavern, Bridgeman Street

Lodge Bank Tavern pictured on 29 March 2011.
Copyright: Lost Pubs Of Bolton 2012

Every pub closure is disappointing as the fabric of our social history is wrapped up in these places. But one of the most disappointing came in August 2010 when the Lodge Bank Tavern closed its doors for the final time.

The Lodge Bank presumably took its name from the Great Bolton Reservoir No. 1 owned by the Bolton Free Waterworks which some 170 years ago occupied the area close to the pub from what is now Rothwell Street up towards the old railway line - part of which can still be seen – and up as far as Gregson Field. In other words a ‘lodge’ with a pub near the corner of one of its banks. Later in the nineteenth century the reservoir was filled in and the Bolton-Leigh railway re-routed from Daubhill into town to run under Heywood Park and land once occupied by the reservoir.

The Lodge Bank Tavern had its own brewery in the nineteenth century and was later owned by Samuel Smith whose brewery at the Dog and Snipe on Folds Road served a number of other of his pubs in Bolton (but who shouldn’t be confused with the Yorkshire brewery of the same name). [1]

Samuel Smith ceased trading in the thirties and the Lodge Bank was then bought by Swales Brewery of Manchester. That perhaps wasn’t so good for drinkers as Swales' beers didn't have a good name amongst many of its customers who nicknamed the brewery's products as ‘Swales Swill’ so it was perhaps a step in the right direction when Swales were taken over by another Manchester brewery, Boddington’s, in 1971.

Boddies in the seventies was the stuff of legend. It was an ‘acquired taste,’ somebody once said, which meant that it tasted different to Tetley Bitter, Double Diamond and Watney’s Red Barrel -it had a discernible taste for one thing - and the beers were as popular as Swales were reviled. It was certainly a far cry from the stuff Boddington’s subsequently brewed in the eighties and nineties which they dubbed ‘the cream of Manchester’. One tale often told was that in the seventies the brewery refused to supply their beers to a customer in the south of England on the grounds that it “didn’t travel well.”

In 1979 the Lodge Bank Tavern closed down and was sold to another family-owned brewer, John Willie Lees of Middleton Junction, to become their first pub in Bolton since the turn of the 20th century. Before the sale went through and the pub could re-open Lees had to get a compulsory purchase order rescinded [2]. The local authority were redeveloping the area and the adjoining properties up to Dalton's newsagent near old railway bridge on Bridgeman Street were all bought and torn down. The railways cuttings were subsequently filled in and Lees also bought some of the land next to the pub to build a beer garden.

By February 1980 the sale had gone through but it was another six months before the Lodge Bank re-opened as Lees decided to completely refurbish it. The re-fit wasn’t to everyone’s liking with one correspondent bemoaning the fact that the old Victorian bar had been ripped out along with windows displaying the pub’s name. When it reopened Mild was on sale at 37p a pint with Bitter at 38p. [3] It also opened with a full licence having been Bolton's last beerhouse. Beer houses were created in 1830 by an Act of Parliament which aimed to make the supply of beer easier and to bring down its price in an attempt to wean the populace off much stronger spirits, particularly gin. For the price of two guineas - £2.10 in today's money - anyone could open a beerhouse and Slater's Bolton Directory of 1843 lists over 300 such establishments in Bolton and district.

New toilets were fitted at the time of the 1980 refurb and a car park was added in 1988 [4]. By then the Lodge Bank was one of three pubs and a club within a hundred yards of each other on Bridgeman Street but first the Victoria went then Bradford Ward Labour Club went the way of so many of the politically-affiliated clubs when it was sold off for housing and finally the Lodge Bank itself closed in August 2010.

Shortly after its closure the pub was sold to Bolton Council and although furniture and bar fittings were stripped the building remained pretty much intact for the next four years. The reason the council bought the pub was as part of an extension to the nearby Clarendon Street school. All the land outside the old school down to the pub was to be bought and the school would either be extended or completely rebuilt. Included in the redevelopment was the old railway cutting right next to the school. But council officials reported in early 2011 that the cutting is full of contaminated material which would have to be treated before the land was built upon. Presumably because of the increased costs the purchase of other land and property was put on hold.

Eventually, the new Clarendon school was built on part of Bobby Heywood's Park across Bridgeman Street and opened in the summer of 2014. The old school burned down in mysterious circumstances shortly after, on 21 July that year.

Meanwhile, the Lodge Bank Tavern building was sold at auction in 2013. In 2014, planning permission was obtained to turn the former pub into two dwellings.

Directly opposite the Lodge Bank Tavern stands the Park Hotel,a 150-year-old pub that is now the great survivor of Bridgeman Street. The Railway, the Victoria, the Forge, the White House, the Farmers, the Lord Napier, the Oliver Cromwell, the Sir Sidney Smith, the Pineapple, the Oxnoble - this small, local’s boozer has seen them all off. It's the last of its kind on what was once a street of pubs.

[1] Bolton Pubs 1800 - 2000, Gordon Readyhough (published by Neil Richardson, 2000)
[2] What’s Doing, the Greater Manchester beer drinkers’ monthly magazine. February 1980.
[3] What's Doing. October 1980
[4] Bolton Beer Break. Summer 1988.

The former Lodge Bank Tavern pictured on 10 November 2014 (copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton). The  pub building had just been gutted prior to its conversion into two dwellings.

Top Storey Club, Crown Street

Of all the pubs and clubs in Bolton the Top Storey club on Crown Street was one of the shortest-lived but was without a doubt the most tragic after 19 people lost their lives in a fire there 50 years ago today on 1 May 1961.

The club was situated in an old mill close to where the multi-story car park now stands and backed on to the open River Croal. It was opened in December 1960 by Mr Stanley Wilcock, who rented the building for his business, Gregg Construction Company, which made kitchen furniture on the lower floors.

Mr Wilcock had the idea of converting the top two floors into a nightclub but by March 1961 he had sold out to two Manchester businessmen, Denis Wilson and Richard Sorrensen ,although he continued to use the lower floors for the kitchen furniture business.

However, the owners of the building were concerned about the idea of a nightclub in the building having only learnt of its existence after seeing an advert in the Bolton Evening News. They considered that the building was unsuitable for licensed premises and at 10.35pm on Monday 1 May 1961 one of the building’s owners, Mr Norman Balshaw, went to the Top Storey club to give Wilson and Sorrensen notice that the club had to close and that they must be out by 24 June.

Mr Balshaw saw the two men in the club office on the ground floor and Wilson and Sorrensen then went upstairs to join the club’s customers.

The Top Storey club wasn’t particularly large and there can’t have been room for more than 100 people in there. On that Monday night, 1 May 1961, there can’t have been more than about 25 people in the club. The layout was just a few tables and chairs arranged down the two sides of the wall with a small space in the middle of the floor. Customers listened to tape recorded music or played on an elaborate one-armed bandit that was a feature of the club.

In 2001 one of the survivors of the fire, Jack Breen, told the Bolton Evening News that he was sitting at the end of the bar at about eleven o’clock with the club’s manager Bill Bohannon. Bill thought he could smell smoke and went down the rickety single flight of wooden steps that was the sole means of entry and exit at the club. When Mr Bohannon got to the ground floor he noticed smoke coming from under the door which led to the workshops.

He kicked in the door but found himself looking into a blazing inferno. He tried to get back upstairs, but was forced back by the intense heat. Upstairs, the first Jack Breen knew about it was when all the lights went out. There was then an explosion that took all the oxygen out of the room but he managed to make his way to a window that had been blown out by the explosion. He stood on the ledge but passed out and fell 80 feet. He woke up in Bolton Royal Infirmary with 20 per cent burns and a badly-damaged hand but he was one of the lucky ones. Nineteen people lost their lives in the fire, five from falls from the windows and 14 who died in the bar area.

Thomas Cardwell, a fireman on the scene that night, described the scene to the Bolton Evening News in 2001. When the fire brigade arrived they found their turntable ladders were too short to reach the top storey of the building.

"The screams just gradually faded away,” he told the paper.

"The building was full of smoke, more smoke than flames really by then, but it was still very warm. The staircase was completely gone and we had to put ladders up inside the building to get to the top floor."

He goes on to describe the scene in the club itself.

"There were bodies all piled up near the bar. No-one inside that room who had not jumped had lived.

"The bodies weren't very burned, though. They were just quite pink -- almost like they'd been on their holidays.

"But they were piled up in two areas, one with about three bodies and another of about 12. They had panicked when they couldn't get out and were just piled together, like a pack of cards."

Firemen from Horwich, Radcliffe and Leigh joined those from Bolton and it took two-and-a-half hours to get the fire under control. The body of one lad who leapt from the club into the River Croal was found downstream a mile away from the scene of the fire.

The club’s owners, Denis Wilson and Richard Sorrensen, were among the dead as was Sheila Bohannon, the wife of manager Bill Bohannon. It was later suggested that figures in the Manchester underworld had a grudge against Mr Sorrensen and were responsible for the fire though nothing was ever proved.
As a result of the Top Storey fire legislation was written in to the Licencing Act 1964 giving more power to fire authorities to close down clubs considered to be fire hazards, while some fire authorities enacted part of the 1961 Act that had recently come into force.

The cause of the fire was never discovered and an inquest returned an open verdict on all 19 dead.

Crown Street car park now covers the site of the club.

Crown Street, 1 May 2011. Picture copyright Lost Pubs Of Bolton, 2011.

Crown Street car park is on the right-hand side and stands on the site of the mill that contained the Top Storey Club. To the left is the rear of Bank Street Chapel. The culverted River Croal runs in front of the church.